charcoal drawings

I am often asked how my paintings germinate? Are they painted from photographs? Are they painted on site?

They originate here, in the charcoal drawings. Charcoal, because it translates its subjects the same way that paint does. It demands a broad hand which focuses on tones and allows only the essential elements to be captured.

I can usually be found in the mornings, stradling my bicycle, working out the landscape before me with a piece of soft charcoal on a tatty piece of paper, attached to a piece of board. Not all of the drawings are fit for public consumption. This is not the point. They are the eating of the landscape which will then be allowed to digest in the ride back to the studio. Here the nutrients will be seperated from the dross.

They are intensly personal momentos of an intimate moment of connection.